Loxley Brewery rebranded during the first Covid-19 lockdown. Their ‘numbered’ cask ales now have names, which comes as a shock to most but it really does make things easier – they promise!
The micro-brewery started out in 2018 just casking ales, and soon expanded their knowledge and started bottling too. When the bottles proved popular, they had to build an on-site bottling plant!
You’d think there was a story behind the numbered cask ales, but really their isn’t, they just didn’t know what to call them and so aptly named them with numbers! This proved popular and made a lot of customers laugh – it really was a talking point. But as bottling commenced, they were inspired to name the bottled ales after local history and folklore surrounding harrowing tales and gruesome legends once told about murders and tragedies on Loxley Common and surrounding areas. Revill, Lomas, Halliday, Fearn & Gunson the bottles were named…and now so are the casks!
Handy guide to know Loxley Ales:
Wisewood One – Revill
Wisewood Three – Halliday (no relation to our good friend James!)
Wisewood Four – Gunson
Wisewood Seven – Lomas
Wisewood Eight – Fearn
Wisewood Two, Five & Six were scrapped prior to the name change as they were the least popular brews. Renaming the beers also made sense so that the numbers didn’t jump!
So – where did the names come from?
Halliday – Thomas Halliday built a Cave House on the Loxley Common.
Revill – In the evening of 30th December 1812 Mary Revill was murdered in the Cave House, which stood lonely on Loxley Common.
Lomas – Marys husband, Lomas Revill, a game keeper, hadn’t come home that night. He had been seen in the local inn and was found the next morning in the gamekeeper’s cabin.
Gunson – The surname of the chief engineer with the Sheffield Waterworks Company. John Gunson engineered the Dale Dyke Dam which burst and flooded Sheffield in 1864, killing many people.
Frank Fearn was hung in 1782, for the murder of a watchmaker. He told the watchmaker a story of a pocket watch club (where customers would save weekly towards the cost of a pocket watch) in High Bradfield. En route, Fearn clubbed and stabbed the watchmaker to death on Kirk Edge Road and hid his body in a nearby copse.
*Bottle delivery available – visit http://www.loxleybrewery.co.uk/shop/ to place your order OR VISIT The Raven Inn / The Wisewood Inn for a proper pint!’*
Hannah Hebb